The pets don’t know the world’s on fire
The pets have been conspiring to interrupt the humans getting out the door.
Screaming for food when the dish is full. Laying on top of the outfit planned for the day in silent protest. Bolting out the door and staging a stand-off in the hallway.
18+ months of being home with them during a pandemic has made them reliant on our presence. The F.O.M.O has kicked in after so many days of having their beloved humans next to them on the couch as they work remotely. Their eyes contort into expressions of betrayal as we saunter out the door without them after they’ve become used to extra play time.
But every time they look up at me with their eager eyes or I once again remove a cat from my sock drawer, I wish I could effectively communicate to them that I don’t wanna leave either. That the world I’m stepping into without them is not one full of adventures or treats that they’re missing out on.
That in fact the world beyond the apartment walls they only see glimpses of during bathroom breaks or visits to the vet is one that they’re adored humans are struggling to navigate. Because if we had our way and the world was committed to collective community care, we would still be at home until things truly improved OR the tumult of interacting with people in public spaces would have dissipated long ago.
One of our cats is obsessed with chewing on our masks, but I’m starting to think it’s just another tactic for interfering with our attempts to leave. Like he’s discerned that without this particular item, we can’t walk out the door. I’m expecting to find a nest of stolen masks somewhere in the apartment someday. Such an intuitive creature, to understand that this arbitrary item has become one of heightened significance and requisite for being out in the world.
But this creature will never know that there are masks scattered all over the sidewalks, abandoned in parking lots and playgrounds, left as choking hazards for seagulls. Or that at one point the supply of these protective face-coverings didn’t meet the demand of masking every human willing to wear one, let alone the ones interfacing directly with COVID patients in hospitals so they had to resort to trash bags.
Our dear dog doesn’t understand that he can’t say hello to every human in the hallway, especially when closing the gap of six feet social distance. He also doesn’t understand that there are humans who never cared about the distancing, the masking, the vaccinating, or the reality of this virus. When his bonus parent was laid up in bed for weeks too tired to move after contracting the virus, he was perfectly content with cuddling up next to me in a blanket cave. So imagine his disappointment in August when I was forced to leave our cave and report back at the office to participate in the pageantry of everything being back to normal.
Our pets don’t know that when we depart, we’re in a hurry to get right back home to them. Especially during the summer when the air was so toxified with particulate matter from unprecedented wildfires that the only logical place for us to be was at home, with the windows closed, hoping it didn’t spread south to us. Imaging a plan for how to evacuate with two cats and a dog, and to where.
Even the majority of days when there’s not thick smog in the air, just thinking about the status of our currently habitable planet invokes heavy climate grief. And other forms of grief. I wonder if the dog could pick up the sent of tear gas when we came home from protesting the weekend after George Floyd’s murder. Most humans in Duluth don’t know the DPD deployed tear gas, but our dog probably knew.
It’s like our pets only interact with the remnants of the days we endure. The scents, the small things, the sounds we make when we finally strip down our burdensome clothes and settle in for the night. They chew masks, smell tear gas, walk with us at the pace our bodies will allow, swirl around our feet when we’re sitting at our desks making protest signs or art or journaling.
They don’t know how serious we are when we joke about them needing to get a job — so far I think we’ve envisioned a delivery route, a rent-a-dog service and a few other positions for Moon. That if only they had thumbs, maybe they could participate in the coercion of capitalism too and help their humans cover some bills.
When they conspire to keep us at home, we’re not willing opponents. Most days we leave, we’re heading to someplace we don’t want to go to fulfill a series of mundane tasks we don’t want do to interact with people we would rather not see. We’re in a forced post-pandemic state of mind.
Being at home with pets who are shielded from at least the cognitive awareness of the world’s plights is a welcome reprieve. I’m sure they sense our anxiety, they hear our arguments, they feel our laboured breathing. But they don’t know that the world is literally on fire, that buying their bag of food is calculated against looming student loan debt payments, or that there are people in the world who want great harm to happen to their humans.
Pets, and perhaps plants for people without pets, are grounding beings. Sentient creatures who are responsive, who reciprocate our love and care, and who are always happy to see us and receive from us. A face we can look into and not have the trepidations of the world immediately mirrored back, a face that is free from the particular form of exhaustion bred by being a conscious human during immense, global strife. The most harm they can cause us is a cat scratch or strong thwack against the shin with their muscly tail.
In pets, it is an appreciated and expected occurrence that they are unaware of what is going on, that their comprehension and experience of the world is the one you curate for them. This exercise in world-making is one we need to scale up and out into the realm of human connectivity. What can we curate, what can we devise, that offers the most meaningful and gratifying experiences of life — what can we learn from curating experiences for the living beings that rely on us — pets, plants, children — that can be adapted?
How can humans exist in a headspace where it’s okay for us not to know what’s going on rather than the current reality of not knowing being how humans remain inactive? Is there ever a point where it would be okay for humans not to know what’s going on, but to be the grounding beings in the lives of others instead?
There’s a whole lot our pets don’t know. And in the moments where I can be with them in the comfort of my own home and turn off the panic brain for a few moments, I am grateful. They don’t give me reminders of what I need to accomplish, they don’t bring up breaking news, they don’t require anything I cannot give them. But they want more of me, they want to be with me, and they want me to stay home. So I wish they knew that I wish I could curate my world in a way that made it possible for me to only leave when I wanted. And in the times I did leave, that I could enter a world that didn’t demand of me things I do not want to provide.
